Info & advice on Myford Speed 10 please (& other small lathes)

[BeagleParticipant @beagle]

Hi all, I’m new to the forums.

 

I’ve been a user of a Colchester Student for many years, but owing to a move and a lack of space I’m having to downsize. I’ve therefore been looking for a small quality lathe that I can replace it with. I’ve done a fair bit of digging across the usual brands in this market – Emco C8 / Hobbymat  / Wabeco 3000&4000 / Chester DB10 / Seig C4 etc etc, but I am leaning towards the Myford Speed 10. 

 

Firstly, can anyone advise me of their good/bad experiences of the Speed 10 (or the ML10)? Is it fair to say that they live up to Myfords 7-series-based reputation?

 

Secondly, can anyone advise the approximate price that these used to sell for new, and also what kit they came with as standard? I ask since second-hand prices seem to range from £700 with chucks / steadies / centres etc, to £1700 with nothing! I’m thus trying to work out what’s a fair price.

 

Lastly, can anyone offer any alternatives for good quality machines of similar capability / footprint? My budget is ideally <£1000, but I’d stretch to £2000 for the right machine. 

 

My uses will be general light engineering / turning for aeromodelling / motobike projects. Back gear desireable. Screw cutting and power cross feeds nice-to-haves, and finally I really want the cross-slide wheel in my left hand (that’s what 20 years on a Colchester has biased me to!)

 

Thanks all.

– Clive

 

[BeagleParticipant @beagle]

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I would think about £500 on Ebay for a reasonably good condition one with some equipment.

You would need a 3 and 4-jaw chuck and faceplate as a minimum plus the set of change gears.

regards David

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Colchester Bantam would have the handwheels where you want them but may still be a bit larger than you want, A late model 2000 would be at teh upper end of your budget but a 1600 could be had for £1000

 

Jason

[BeagleParticipant @beagle]

Guys, thanks for the replies.

 

Yep, given the space I’d probably head straight for a Bantam, but sadly I just don’t have the room, so it’s a small benchtop for me (for now anyway)! At a push I could squeeze something Super-7-esque in, as they are actually a bit smaller than I imagined, but I’d still prefer to go even smaller.

 

I’ve gotten a little confused watching the prices of ML10s / Speed 10s on ebay and other sites. Certainly the ML10s can be had for £500-700 in “reasonable” condition, with some accessories. The Speed 10s though (obviously) command a little more, but as I say, I’ve seen one as high as £1700 in “immaculate condition”. Now if that’s the money a good one is truly worth, then I might consider it, but the more I’m learning about these little Myfords, the more I get the impression one is paying for the name in addition to just getting a good lathe?? 

 

May I ask what other members on here have paid for ML10s / Speeds 10s, and what they think of them?

 

Thanks.

[Dave ShieldParticipant @daveshield21426]

I bought a  ML10 in the early 70s and it was a great machine. It cost about £125 including a chuck and set of turning tools. I had never used a lathe before but built a mini traction engine on it. You could not go wrong with LC Masons instructions. I also built a Dore Westbury milling machine with it. The spindle was a bit of a struggle.

I got £400 for it in part exchange for a super 7.

I feel that Myford were wrong stopping production of the ML10 as it was a good introduction to their products at a more afordable price. When I bought it I was newly married  earing about £20 a week.

The quality is way above the imported machines, no remedial actions required it worked strate from the box.

I bought a second hand Tom Senior milling machine later and  again the quality is far above the inports.

[Dave ShieldParticipant @daveshield21426]

I bought a  ML10 in the early 70s and it was a great machine. It cost about £125 including a chuck and set of turning tools. I had never used a lathe before but built a mini traction engine on it. You could not go wrong with LC Masons instructions. I also built a Dore Westbury milling machine with it. The spindle was a bit of a struggle.

I got £400 for it in part exchange for a super 7.

I feel that Myford were wrong stopping production of the ML10 as it was a good introduction to their products at a more afordable price. When I bought it I was newly married  earing about £20 a week.

The quality is way above the imported machines, no remedial actions required it worked strate from the box.

I bought a second hand Tom Senior milling machine later and  again the quality is far above the inports.

[Charlie,Participant @charlie18171]

Hi Beagle,

                   I bought a late model speed ten in exelent condition for£750bout four years ago,Came with lots and lots of extras,It was a long way up country,So the seller and myself agreed to meet halfway,Bit iffy buying a lathe without having seen it,But when i saw it it was exactly as described,The seller was a genuine sort of chap,The speed 10

was to replace an ml 10 which i sold for £400, The same as i paid for it,And i had had many years of work out of it,Which only goes to show a good lathe is an investment,

Peronaly i say buy a good Myford and your money is safe,I also have an ml7 and the

only thing that will do that the speed ten wont is swing a slightly larger diameter,Which

is handy once in a blue moon,

[adyParticipant @ady]

Boxford did some pretty amazing looking stuff, and it comes up from time to time on fleabay.

If you’ve got a grand or two and can arrange transport its well worth doing the research and using fleabay.

What look like some real high quality gems appear from time to time.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Boxford-lathe-/220665134597?pt=UK_Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item3360aabe05

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Boxford-Model-Lathe-extensive-accessories-/150489107704?pt=UK_Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item2309d98cf8

 

A bit too big for me though.

Depends on how much downsizing is needed.

Edited By ady on 09/09/2010 23:07:14

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You mention the Emco Compact 8, I had the geared head version the Ecomat8.6 for over 20 years and only sold it as I needed larger capacity, it was immaculate and after several months of advertising could only get £400 for it, new stands for the compact are on e-bay for more than that. They do come up from time to time so just watch out for something.

 

Only thing I would say is try to find something that can swing just over 9″  in the gap or over the bed as so many things like stationary engine flywheels are sized so they can be done on the myford with its gap.

 

Jason

[Axel BentellParticipant @axelbentell]

I had a Asian import once that was a Emco8 clone, its sold in the UK from Gate machinery, a company not much advertised! I liked that lathe alot, but was too small for me at the time. Still I too would prolly get a used ML10….

[joegibParticipant @joegib]

I’ve owned an ML10 since 1974 and over the years it’s gone through various transformations so that, functionally, it’s now a long-bed Speed 10. Its virtues are that it’s compact, robust for it’s size, accurate, modular (in the sense that you can easily disassemble it into one-man portable parts in half an hour and re-assemble it accurately) and frequently available in good secondhand condition. And despite what the know-it-alls say in another thread, the long tee-slotted crosslide is very handy for line-boring and other milling if you don’t expect to have a milling machine in the near future.

 

So, having lived with it all these years I’m reconciled to it (mostly because I live in a 4th storey flat and can’t contemplate humping an industrial behemoth up 3 flights of stairs!). All that said, the ML10 has one horrible vice — its carriage traverse arrangement. Instead of a rack, Myford fixed the traverse handle to a gear wheel that rides/drives along the top of the leadscrew. The latter, having an ACME thread tends to bend downwards in reaction. To counter this Myford installed an idler gearwheel below the leadscrew to balance the downward thrust and this is adjustable using a cam arrangement. It ought to work but it doesn’t! If you turn the handle in the natural way, once every revolution you hit a hard spot that you have to drive through by force. In practice, I tend to push the carriage with one hand and wind the handle with the other. If you’re used to industrial machines, you’d find this set-up a severe trial! (It used to be my annual ritual to test the display ML10 model on the Myford stand at the ME exhibition. You’d think that this would have been optimally adjusted but, no, they always displayed exactly the same characteristic).

 

Prices? The high-end prices asked for secondhand specimens are either dealer fantasies or private sellers who think that the Myford ‘magic’ covers everything bearing the name. I think you’d have to pay around £850 for a well-equipped Speed 10 on the original full-enclosed stand.

 

If I were in the same position I’d go for a good-condition Boxford or Emco that meets your size requirements.

 

Joe

 

 

[BeagleParticipant @beagle]

Joe – Thanks for the detailed info. I follow your description of the ML/Speed traverse gear arrangement, but I don’t get why there’s a tight spot once every revolution? Is this just a “coincidental” tight spot on the gear wheel / idler? If so, why not adjust the cam for the tight spot – or do we get backlash over the rest of the range then? I’m not being pedantic, just want to know what to look out for, and understand if it’s fixable  

 

 

All –  Thanks for the opinons and input – very useful. You’ve certainly confirmed that I was looking on the right lines with my varioius machine options / brands. Having had a look at them all I think I’m going to stick with finding a nice little metric Speed 10 in a long bed version. That should suit my needs for now and is the best compromise for me in terms of cost / quality / size / capability (oh and me being biased to Colchester / Myford handwheel orientations!).

 

As a quick comment; a few of you have mentioned Emco. I popped down to the Emco / Wabeco importer in Stamford a few months ago, and I have to say I wasn’t as impressed with the finish quality of the recent Emco machines as I had hoped. In fact the gentleman did have an older Emco in stock (which he wouldn’t let go!), and to me it did look like the better finished machine. I’m not for a minute saying the new one performed worse, but it did look produced to a budget. Is this a fair observation on recent Emco machines, or am I off the mark here?

 

– Clive

 

[joegibParticipant @joegib]

Hi Clive,

Firstly, in referring to a cam I used the wrong word — the lower idler gear rides on an eccentric shaft whose end is shown in this photo:

Turning the slotted end raises/lowers the idler gear relative to the leadscrew underside. The shaft is loosened/locked by a grubscrew located on the side of the apron.

As to why the hard spot develops, I think it's to do with the change in the handwheel spindle clearance in its apron journal as the handwheel/gear goes through a revolution. When driving the handwheel anti-clockwise between say 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock the handthrust is predominantly upwards, so the clearance is taken up vertically, relieving downward pressure on the gear/leadscrew. At 9 o'clock (and 3 o'clock) hand thrust is neutral (in the vertical axis). Between 8 o'clock and 4 o'clock (going CCW) hand thrust is predominantly downwards, so the spindle clearance is taken up in that direction. That increases the pressure of the gear on the leadscrew, against which the fixed idler gear reacts. The overall effect is to increase/decrease depth of gear engagement as the handwheel goes through the lower half of its revolution. To labour the point, this arrangement has 2 flexible elements — the leadscrew and the handwheel spindle clearance.

A conventional rack arrangement is quite different. The handwheel has a fixed gear which drives an intermediate gear that is compounded to a 3rd gear that drives along the underside of the rack. Sure, there are clearances on the handwheel/intermediate gear spindles but these are on fixed centres, and the rack is likewise firmly fixed. Any minute changes in depth of engagement as the elements revolve can be allowed for in the design clearance set between the final gear and rack. And this arrangement has greater mechanical advantage so any change in motion resistance is less perceptible.

Fixes for the ML10? Well, fixing a needle roller bearing to the handwheel spindle might mitigate the effect but not eliminate it. I've considered trying to install a rack arrangement from time to time but I don't think there's enough room in the apron. To conclude, perhaps I went OTT in my first reply — it's an irritant rather than a showstopper. Funnily enough, I don't think I've ever seen anyone make this complaint — maybe it's like the wart on the nose of a beauty, something people don't refer to out of politeness!

Joe 

Edited By joegib on 13/09/2010 12:34:36

Edited By Katy Purvis on 01/06/2015 12:05:08

[Engine BuilderParticipant @enginebuilder]

Hi joejib.

I have an ML10 and do not have the problem you mention. I use the handwheel on the end of the leadscrew for tuning and only use the carrige wheel as a quick return. The ML10 is an excellent machine and can be made to do much bigger things than Myford intended like this….

 

[NJHParticipant @njh]

 

I always rather liked my ML10 and didn’t find  too much of a
problem from the “stiff spot” described. However the ball handle for the
carriage traverse was annoying so I replaced it  with a small handwheel
which was better.

 

The main difficulty with the machine was the shortness
of the bed which made things a bit cramped but otherwise it was fine and
we spent many happy hours together!

 

 

 

 

Regards

 

Norman

 

 

 

 

Edited By NJH on 13/09/2010 13:53:38

[joegibParticipant @joegib]

Hi Gents,

 

Engine Builder (a.k.a. ‘myfordboy’) — Thanks for your comment. May I say how much I’ve enjoyed your casting and machining videos on YouTube over the last few years. They show just how much can be achieved with an ML10. I’m duly chastened.

 

Norman (NJH) — As it happens I picked up a handwheel from RDG some while ago with this kind of mod in mind. Your success is encouraging so I’ll press ahead with it. Thanks.

 

Joe

[BeagleParticipant @beagle]

Engine Builder – ok, I’m mildly impressed with that!! ;o)

 

Tell me, do you have the stock 250W Brook-Crompton turning that lot over?

 

– Clive

[Engine BuilderParticipant @enginebuilder]

Yes Clive thats the one.

David

 

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